Just a few Christmas season memories today. This is a video lesson I did last year and thought you might want to watch it if you have not yet seen it to learn about the scientific possibilities regarding the mystery of the Star. If you are interested in astronomy or history and how this can confirm the Biblical text, you might like this one. It’s a 43.5 mb Flash file, be patient and use your fulll screen to view.

There were a number of podcasts I had done last year (2004) up to about March of this year, that had broken links. Evidently they had been like that since last May when I did some reorganization on the server they were located on. The links are fixed now. Scroll down the list after clicking on this link to find them. Be forewarned, these files are located on my home server and the download speed for you will be a litte slower.

I know those of you in my Sunday School class have been waiting to get started in the Sermon on the Mount series I have been talking about doing for so long now. We'll here is a lesson (mp3 audio download) just to whet your appitite a little bit. It is not really part of the series but it is from Matthew chapter 4 leading up to Chapter 5 which is the start of the Sermon on the Mount. So this lesson will sort of set the stage for our long look into the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew says:

Matthew 4:23 (NKJV)

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

Although we will spend weeks talking about this kingdom thing, I touch on it a little bit in this lesson.

There are many different variations on the Good News and that is not good news. Why? Because there ought to be one version. Which one is that you ask? Well, that would be the one in the Bible of course. Here is an audio (podcast) of the Sunday School Lesson I taught on this subject last week. I was inspired by a presentation I saw over at 9marks ministries.

There is a presentation about One Verse Evangelism over at the Navigators site I was intrigued with. This mp3 file is part of a Sunday School Lesson I did on this technique for sharing your faith. Basically you just have to know one verse, Romans 6:23 and the entire message is contained in outline form within this short verse.

I can't believe it but on April 3, 2005, I forgot to bring my recorder for the last lesson of this Hebrews series on chapter 13. Arrgh! That really put me in a state of mild depression. I was having some health problems and my energy levels were already low so I just could not bring myself to do the lesson over for my dog at home (I've done that before when I forgot to bring the recorder; my dog is very attentive :-). Also, it did not seem appropriate to ask my Sunday school class to hear the lesson again. Anyway, it turns out that I did not have enough time to finish the chapter anyway. I had skipped the benediction at the end of the book. So, this is a reprise using the writer's benediction as an outline for the last lesson of this series. Actually I am pretty pleased with the way things turned out, because I think God perhaps knew we needed examine this benediction.

Don’t mistake God’s Loving discipline in pain and suffering for cruel punishment. Otherwise you may become bitter. Suffering has meaning, purpose. It is for discipline that you endure; it hurts temporarily. Esau is an example of a bitter person and what a sad story that was. But even Jesus suffered and benefited from it:

Hebrews 5:8 (NKJV)

Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered.

This chapter ends with a discusion about a massive earthquake that is to come. We find out that everything we see here on this earth is just props that are not good things to hold onto in a shaking. But there is something that cannot be shaken and it will remain. It should be obvious as to what that is.

Are you coasting through life? You need to be running. The point of this book of Hebrews is to endure, persevere, run, fight, don't drift, don't neglect. I used to run for exercise (wish I still could!). But I did not do it because it felt good while I was running. I did it because it felt so good when I finished. This chapter tells us to lay aside the weights which hold us back. Too many times we ask "Is it a sin to do this or that?" That's not the right question. Ask "Does it help me to run the race." Listen to find out why there is pain and suffering in this world and where it comes from and why.

You are reading through this list of heroes of the faith in Chapter 11 of Hebrews and you are amazed at the exploits of these people. By faith, they escaped the edge of the sword, raised the dead to life, fought back armies against impossible odds. Boy, let me in on that! But right in the middle of verse 35 the excitment turns on a period--by faith others were tortured, were slain with the sword, stoned, sawn in two. So what's the deal? Evidently faith is not the factor that determines whether you will suffer or not. Listen to find out what Who the determining factor is!

Did you know Noah was a preacher? Yep, says so in the Bible. Problem is, by our standards today, he wasn't too successful. Don't be too hard on him though, he is all of our great, great, great, great ... granddaddy. Anyway, his family did get saved. Noah must have been considered quite the nutcase, building an ark there hundreds of miles from any navigable water.

Faith will change your value system. If you are worried whether everything will work out when you take that next big step of faith and obey God, don't worry, it won't work out. You are not going to be satisfied with this world. It's not your home. You were made for another city, one whose builder and maker is God. Once you get your internal value system right by faith and trust in God's promises, your outward actions may seem a bit crazy to the outside world. Noah and Abraham did some pretty astounding things but they are models for the life of faith. Abraham believed God when he did not know where he was supposed to go or how God was going to keep His promise or when he would receive his promise or even why God would ask him to do such a thing as sacrifice his son.

We need some good heros and there are not so many good ones around today. Listen to find out whether Noah and Abraham might be some good hero candidates for you.

Ours is not a blind faith. Rather the Bible makes sound and logical arguments for the faith. The Bible is a book of truth, the truest book there ever was but it is not just a book of historical facts, stories, commands and truth assertions. It is a book of reason. I heard John Piper make this point and the excitement of such an idea makes me hunger to understand every sentence, even every word in the Bible. There is great reason behind why verse 6 says that it is impossible to please God without faith. The most marvelous truth is why God, by the logic of His complete and utter self-sufficiency, must be a rewarder--overflowing with Grace.

Listen to hear also about Abel and Enoch and about his kid Methuselah too.

Hebrews chapter 11 is the faith chapter. We are going to work our way through this one carefully over several weeks. Faith is fundamental to the Christian life and you need to know what it is, how it works, and how you live by it. The first three verses of this chapter are monumental in importance, we find out what faith is, but with some very curious words. Faith is substance and evidence. How something as nebulus as faith have substance? And what about evidence, I thought faith was a result of evidence not the evidence itself. What we will find out is that faith is more real than everything else you can touch and feel around you. I hope I've got your attention on this one. This is going to be very interesting. Listen to it.

There is a major shift in this chapter dividing the book of Hebrews between doctrine and application. The shift begins with five “Let Us” commands, the first being "Let us draw near to God." This is perhaps the main theme of the book of Hebrews, the idea that we have access to God. It is a blood bought priviledge. We are told that we should draw near with a sincere heart, full assurance, and a guilty conscience cleansed by the word of God. A guilty conscience is debilitating. It will separate friends, steal you happiness, and keep you from God. Psychiatrists know that a guilt complex is the main cause of mental illness. They try to cover the guilt by convincing their patients that they are not to blame. Such a tactic does not work—because we are to blame. The only way to remove guilt is to be forgiven. That is what allows us to draw near to God. It must be a just forgiveness however. If a judge were to forgive all guilty persons who come before him, he would not be just. There is a price and for us, the price was paid by Jesus once and final sacrifice of his body.

There is much more in this chapter. Listen to the podcast to hear more.

The typical Christian worship service is very non threatening. A popular term among evangelical Christianity today is "Seeker oriented" worship services. You sure could not apply that term to how the Israelites worshiped. They sacrificed animals, lots of them. They say the blood would run like a river a times. We would be repulsed today at such a bloody religion. Yet, this was not their idea. They practiced their religion according to an exact set of specifications given to Moses. This was God's idea, and He was very serious about it. So how does this relate to us today? Hebrews chapter nine contains some marvelous truths about what Christ did for us in shedding His blood. Listen to learn more about how this chapter of Hebrews reconciles what the Israelites did for worship and how we worship.

There was an ice storm here in Memphis before Christmas so our church canceled all services on December 26, 2004. I had planned to take a break that Sunday with a fun, multi-media talk on the Star of Bethlehem. So we did that on January 2, 2005 instead. The multi-media part was an experiment in how to record and deliver video via the Internet. The challenge was to keep the file size down without sacrificing too much quality. So, this week I am featuring a 42.4 MB download.

If you are interested in astronomy or history and how this can confirm the Biblical text, you might like this one.

What's wrong with the Old Covenant that we need a new one? Did God make a mistake that he needed a New Covenant to replace the Old one? Perhaps it was just outdated and needed some modernizing? A covenant is a pact between two parties both of which must keep their part. Guess who failed to keep their part. I'll give you a hint, it wasn't God. Turns out the Israelites were not even capable of keeping their part of the bargain. They did not have what it took (Deut 29:4). What they needed was a willing heart and spiritual eyes to see the truth. That is what the New Covenant is all about (Jer 31:31), it is one which gives us a new heart and the Holy Spirit as an indwelling helper.

Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus ever lives to intercede for us. What picture does this bring to mind for you? Is it that of a lawyer pacing the courtroom, arguing your case before the judge? That can't be right because the Bible says that Jesus is "seated" in heaven. This is a picture of completion, the work is finished. No lawyer sits while pleading his case. I don't think Jesus is interceding with words before the Father. I think Jesus himself is the intercession. It is his wounds and scars that serve as a witness of the work he has finished on the cross. When we get to heaven, there will always be that reminder of what he has paid for, our sin debt. Listen to the podcast to find out how Jesus role as our High Priest fulfills everything the Jewish priesthood foreshadowed.

Whether a person can be lost again after becoming a Christian is a question good men have argued about for centuries. Frankly, a strong case can be made quite competently from scripture itself to support either side of the arguement. But Hebrews 6:4-6 give both the Calvinists and Arminians some discomfort. Is that what the author intended? Perhaps, because many from both camps can take the grace of God a bit too casually. Regardless of anyone's view of this classic question of Christianity, it is a healthy admonition to not fall away from the faith. However, there are some other views that seem to make better sense of this chapter. Listen to find out what those views are.

There is a mysterious character who shows up in Genesis 14 called Melchizedek, King of Salem, who blesses Abram, serves bread and wine, and is called a priest of the Most High God. His name means king of righteousness and his title means King of Peace. The priesthood was not established until hundreds of years later by Moses. In this chapter of Hebrews, Jesus is called our Great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek. Later in this same chapter we find out that Jesus had to learn obedience. Interesting topics... listen to find out more.

The theme of Chapter 4 is entering God's Rest. What is the difference between God's rest after six days of creative work, the Israelites entering their Caanan rest after 40 years of wandering, and the rest that Jesus promised when he said “Come to me you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This chapter tells us to fear not entering God's rest. We find out that the reason the wandering Israelites did not enter God's rest was because of unbelief. That is what we are to fear--unbelief.

Listen to the podcast to find out why a heathy fear of not trusting God's promises is actually a recipe for being fearless.

There is a mine field we need to navigate through in Chapter 3 of Hebrews. It won't be the last one in this book either. Hebrews 3:14 says “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” Does this mean we need to hold on to our salvation to the end before we can be saved, or worse that we can lose our salvation if we don't hold fast?

Listen to find out the answer to this provative issue. And at the same time gain a greater appreciation for our only hope, Jesus Christ. You'll find out about the importance of small groups too.

Hebrews Chapter One was a celebration of Jesus Christ. There were no commands in the first chapter, just truth. Chapter two starts out with the first command of this book of Hebrews, “To give earnest heed to what we have heard lest we drift away.” Have you ever drifted away from church or from studying the Bible? A true Christian won't drift for long. The writer goes on to ask the rhetorical question “How shall we escape if we ignore so great a salvation.” The obvious answer is that there is no escape for such.

This chapter is a meditation on the greatness of our salvation. Mostly we think of being saved as wonderful because we don't deserve it. Salvation is indeed great for that reason but it is great too because of our great destiny. There is a surprise about our destiny in this chapter. Listen and find out what it is.